Wednesday, November 28, 2007

This Cellar Craft wine ingredient kit features a star variety from the Alto-Adige area in the far north of Italy. This medium-bodied wine features lively, fresh citrus notes and a subtle spiciness. Italian Riserva Pinot Grigio is usually enjoyed young but it may also be aged for several months.

Relax! Have a home brew (or a glass of homemade wine!). Now is the perfect time to get started, to reinvigorate a hobby you have let go for awhile or to accelerate your production to meet the growing demands of your friends! Winemaking equipment and home brew supplies are in stock and ready to ship within 24 hours of your order. Our beer brewing supplies are fresh and our home brew equipment packages are just what you need for Christmas! Have a Happy Holiday season from BlueStem Winery.

Yours truly made this wine as one of the first ones tried when we started carrying the Cellar Craft line and it is absolutely delicious! No waiting! We started drinking this wine when it was very young and it was luscious right from the start!

Notes of honey, apple and apricot dominate the aroma and taste! A long rich finish makes this late harvest wine special. On a scale of zero to ten with zero being dry and ten being an ice wine, this wine would rate a six. Although we have been carrying the Cellar Craft line for only about four months we have customers coming back for seconds on this wine already! Delicious!

Friday, November 23, 2007

Cellar Craft Regional Classics Italian Reserva Nebbiolo comes from Italy's most noble red grape. This grape comes from the central Piedmont area of Italy and is the grape of the great Barolos and Barbarescos.

Ruby in color with a soft and moderate body with suggestions of violets and raspberries. Accented by French oak, this wine benefits from aging for 12 months or more.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

One of our store favorites!! Peach and melon from the Riesling blend beautifully together with the spice, mango, and grapefruit of the Gewurztraminer in Cellar CraftShowcase Gewurztraminer-Riesling. Elegant with a hint of sweetness! Enjoy this wine young and fresh or cellar it for a more harmonious profile. Extremely food friendly!! Enjoy this one just slightly chilled.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Bare Ridge Vineyard in Walla Walla, Washington is the grape source for Cellar CraftShowcase Walla Walla Cabernet-Merlot. Walla Walla reds were what first put Washington on the world wine map. Washington reds are now grouped with world standard reds from Bordeaux, Napa and Sonoma. Walla Walla Cabernets and Merlots are consistently in the top ten of the finest wines from America.

This wine is a classic Bordeaux blend of Cabernet and Merlot but it also typifies the unique Walla Walla profile of intense fruit and spice flavors and aromatics. Subtle currant, cherry and plum notes are backed by hints of black pepper, anise and coffee. The wine is oaked in a two-stage process using French and Hungarian oaks which very nicely mellows the tannins and adds jut a hint of toastiness.

Just got to have some homebrewing supplies or homebrew equipment and its Monday or Tuesday? Give us a call! We are usually in the store working with our wine or packaging internet sales. If we are in the store we are open for business!

It starts up-front with aromas of blackberries and cherries. Blueberries, raspberries, cranberries and dried plums follow. Beneath this are hints of chocolate, almond and exotic spices. This all finishes with an unmistakable sensation of black pepper.

You can enjoy the first bottle of this wine when it is only two to three months old. The fruit flavors will dominate at this point in its life. Cellar some for months (or years) more to experience a more refined balance and complexity.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Me either! The first time I saw this wine I had not a clue how to pronounce Viognier! The correct pronunciation is vee-yon yay. Now you know!

This is one of the Cellar Craft ingredient kits and is part of their Showcase collection. The grapes used for this wonderful white are from the Yakima Ridge Vineyard in the Yakima Valley of Washington.

Making wine is also part of who BlueStem is! We are a licensed and bonded winery with our own "Once in a Blue Moon" (a Riesling dessert wine) on the wine rack already and two more scheduled for very early 2008 ("Red Crescent" is a Cabernet Franc dessert wine and "Dark Side" is a dry Chilean Montepulciano). We will also be releasing Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Gruner Veltliner wines and a Gewurztraminer dessert wine in mid-2008 and a Zweigelt in early 2009 as these wines mature.

Experience a blast of red and black fruits, chocolate, coffee and licorice followed by the black pepper spiciness of this Washington State Syrah. Two-stage oaking keeps the fruit in check and adds great structure.

A deep-purple wine which shows well after only three months, this Syrah benefits from extended aging. One or two years in the cellar will allow this wine to reach its full potential.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Elegant and bold, this Yakima Valley Merlot from Cellar Craft is big and full of up-front waves of raspberry, blackberry and plum. Subtle notes of cedar and mocha follow the fruit and over time, the flavors harmonize while the oak contributes a tempering vanilla note.

Dark, rich, intense! This wine is worthy of aging and will continue to improve for a least two years in the bottle.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

From the White Sands and Rattlesnake Valley Vineyards located in Washington's Yakima Valley comes Cellar Craft Showcase Cabernet-Shiraz. Yakima Valley Cabernet and Syrah (Shiraz) are many times compared to the great wines from down under, but they also have their own, perhaps more sophisticated, charm.

Cabernet-Shiraz starts with a rush of blackberries, plums, cherries and candied orange fragrances. These bouquets are followed by the flavors of currants, figs, cedar and spice entwined with a balance of toasted oak with a rich, elegant finish.

After two to three months of aging the powerful fruit flavors start to come together. After six to twelve months the tannins soften and the elegant charm of this wine starts to reveal itself. This wine can be cellared for more than two years.

Big, full-bodied with solid structure and combined with plum and cherry notes balance the bold tannins. French and American oaks add toasty vanilla flavors and greater depth to this intense red wine.

Like all of Cellar Craft's wines made with crushed grape packs a minimum of six months aging is necessary to let this wine begin to develop. A year is better and two years will yield a very special wine indeed.

Cellar CraftShowcase Amarone originates from the Valpolicella area of Italy. It is a bold, assertive wine with a distinct and unique character that derives from the addition of dried grapes during fermentation. The result is a wine with the depth of a Port or Late Harvest wine but without the sweetness.

Showcase Amarone from Cellar Craft has its foundation in Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara grapes from Veneto. The must is fermented on crushed grapes from over ten pounds of fruit plus four pounds of whole grapes which have been sun-dried to perfection. A double dose of untoasted oak balances the wine and with aging tames the natural tannins present in this wine.

This wine is very full-bodied, dry and is a deep garnet color. Hints of plums, sour cherries, raspberries and vanilla blend with into the anise, bitter chocolate, coffee, tobacco, leather and fig flavors which develop with aging. This wine features a long, lingering finish and an alcohol content which should exceed 15%. This wine is best if aged for at least a year.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

So you want to get started enjoying wine but don't have a clue about what makes a good wine or where to find out what makes a good wine.

Not a problem! No one can really tell you what kind of wine (white, red, blush, fruit, dry, sweet, or in between) you will like most. Everyone's taste for wine is different. We do tastings in our winery and long ago I gave up on trying to tell people what they should or should not enjoy. Everyone is different and everyone's taste for wine is different, too!

Start your wine testing by enjoying wine by the glass rather than by purchasing an entire bottle of something you may not enjoy. By keeping a diary of which wines you like or don't like you will soon see a pattern develop and this will help you with future wine purchases.

We have many people who purchase wine for health reasons and it is true that wine does have certain benefits to the circulatory system. Red? White? Both are beneficial in this regard. Instead of debating the benefits of either, choose a wine which you enjoy.

In addition to marketing our own label of wines (BlueStem Winery), we also operate a wine and home brewing supplies store. We market winemaking ingredient kits for both WinExpert and Cellar Craft and currently have in stock approximately 100 different types of wine kits. We can definitely help you with the equipment you need and also assist you in choosing a wine to make that you will enjoy. Beer brewers, we have what you need, too! Our own line of BlueStem's Best homebrew ingredient kits plus malt extracts, malted grains, hops and yeast are always available. Our website features pricing with all shipping included in the item cost. No guessing on what it will cost to ship direct to your door.

About Me

BlueStem Winery is a licensed Iowa winery which also retails winemaking and home brewing equipment, supplies and ingredients. We blog about wine making and home brewing techniques and about other things as the spirit moves us.